“This course provided a tremendous opportunity to guide me in knowing and seeing my students and city with a fresh lens.” The sentiments expressed by Mary Tuttle, an elementary art teacher, capture the depth of interest and enthusiasm of the Salem Public Schools staff that have chosen to join the newly developed Dominican Republic study group.

The official name of the professional development workshop is Developing Our Cultural Curiosity: A Study of One Immigrant Group and the Implications for Salem’s Classrooms. But in the Salem Public Schools, it has become known as the Dominican Republic Workshop because the focus is to heighten teachers’ awareness of the history, culture, immigration patterns, and self-identity of the people of the Dominican Republic, the largest immigrant group in Salem. Begun last spring by the English Language Learning (ELL) Department, the workshop just ran for the second time in December, and was enthusiastically received by those in attendance.

“This course was a wonderful opportunity to explore the country through a variety of lenses. It also made me step back and examine what I thought I knew,” said Paula Dobrow, Director of Nursing and Health Services.

The facilitators of the 4-day workshop, Interim ELL Director Nancy Meacham, Saltonstall Adjustment Counselor Perla Peguero, Bates ESL teacher Luz Villarreal, and Horace Mann/ Saltonstall Spanish teacher Berta Tavares, all agree that developing cultural curiosity and understanding can positively affect classroom practice, enrich our curriculum, and help us better engage families. And as the facilitators emphasized at the workshop, study of one immigrant group can also help us develop a greater appreciation for the importance and complexity of learning about any cultural group represented by our students.

Facilitators partnered with Salem’s Latino Leadership Coalition to get ideas for the community engagement portion of the workshop, and to invite Dominican parents to speak directly to workshop attendees. Participants stayed after school for 4 evenings, completed outside readings and assignments, and wrote thoughtful essays applying the content to their own practice.

“This year, my ELL students are from The Dominican Republic, Haiti, Brazil, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Mexico, Puerto Rico, El Salvador and Syria. This workshop has certainly been invaluable for providing me with a deeper understanding of the Dominican Republic, the home country of the majority of our ELL students in Salem but more significantly, it has provided me with new ways of considering cultural curiosity,” noted Collins Middle School ESL teacher Jan Fellows.

A new round of the Dominican Republic Workshop is scheduled to run this spring.